The Oath of the Tennis Court (thing)

One of the grand properties of a mob is that mobs will
often riot, regardless of what all-encompassing idea
they may or may not have in their heads. See, a mob
wants to fuck shit up, and really, when it comes to
the actual upwards shit-fucking, one reason is as good
as any other. This can really help out those who have
an agenda... get the mob to sign off on your ideals
and none can stand in your (mob's) way.

The rest of the story :
the Kingdom of France was well and truly screwed in
the spring of 1789. They were screwed for a multitude
of reasons, but it all came down to cash in hand - the
state coffers were nearly empty. (And the term
'deficit spending' hadn't been invented yet, much to
Louis XVI's chagrin.) So, in an effort to effect
enough reforms to help fix the cash flow problems
without wrecking the feudal system currently in place,
an Estates-General was called in April. In the body,
300 members of the nobility, 300 members of the
clergy, and for the commoners... 600 representatives.
This was a concession from the King, one that he
doubtless considered to be an empty gesture; after
all, in an Estates-General, each Estate votes as an
equal bloc. While the numbers of the the Third Estate
were definitely gaudy (and meant to signal greater
importance), anyone with control of the majority of
the first two houses should get his way, and the King had that.

The
doubling of the numbers, that was the inch; here's the
mile. From Day One, the Third Estate demanded that
voting switch to a per-member basis, thereby creating
a new majority - the reform-minded minorities in the
First and Second Estates with the whole of the Third Estate. No discussion would go forward until this issue was resolved, and it wouldn't get resolved -
Louis XVI wouldn't give up a sure thing that easily.
One thing led to another, and on June 20, 1789, in an
attempt to learn the gridlocking commoners some
manners, the doors of the poshAssembly Hall in
Versailles were locked.

Bad move. Left to their own
devices, the members of the Third Estate began
agitating. They took over a nearby tennis court and
all members were given the following oath :

The National Assembly, considering that it has been
summoned to establish the constitution of the kingdom,
to effect the regeneration of public order, and to
maintain the true principles of monarchy; that nothing
can prevent it from continuing its deliberations in
whatever place it may be forced to establish itself;
and, finally, that wheresoever its members are
assembled, there is the National Assembly;
Decrees that all members of this Assembly shall
immediately take a solemn oath not to separate, and to
reassembly wherever circumstances require, until the
constitution of the kingdom is established and
consolidated upon firm foundations; and that, the said
oath taken, all members and each one of the
individually shall ratify this steadfast resolution by
signature.

But it was celebrated in the day, due
mostly to propaganda of the leaders of the Third
Estate. They took full advantage of the situation to
claim a major coup, and they added rose tinting to the
tennis court scene itself. This romantic coloring was
achieved with the help of the great artist,
revolutionary, and propagandist, Jacques-Louis David.
His chairoscuro take on the proceedings of the day
were oft-printed, to the delight of those who took the
oath, as it cast them all in a fine, upstanding light.
David did not witness the Oath itself, and he couldn't
have cared less; he was raised on gloriously clean
reproductions of Greek and Roman myths, so his choice
to portray the Oath in much the same light is not
surprising. He was even willing to change out
participants based on who was politically 'hot' at the
time, for maximum effect.